Madeleine got up, still sobbing, but less violently. She leaned her head on Pauline’s shoulder. Seeming to find there a safer, warmer refuge and a closer, more intimate affection, she walked slowly away from the scene.

MONSIEUR JOCASTE

Do you remember, Madame, that great argument we had one night in the little Japanese drawing room, about the father who committed incest? Remember how angry you were at the time? How you insulted me? What a wave of righteous indignation you were riding? Can you remember all I said in his defence? This is my appeal against the guilty verdict you then pronounced. In your view no one in the world can absolve anyone else of the infamous crime I was defending then. So now I’d like to bring the whole drama out into the public arena. Perhaps we will find someone who, without ever denying the brutal, distasteful facts of the matter, will nevertheless understand that one cannot always overcome certain inevitabilities, certain freak circumstances with which Nature, in all her rich variety, sometimes presents us.

This particular girl had been married off at the age of sixteen to a hard-nosed old businessman keen to get his hands on her dowry. She was a pretty little blonde creature, a cheerful, idealistic sort of girl who longed for perfect happiness. Her heart, aching from early disillusionment, finally broke. Suddenly she realized that all her hopes for the future had been destroyed. The only desire left in her soul was to have a child to whom she could devote all the abundant love she had within her.

None came.

Two years passed. She fell in love. He was a young man of twenty-three who loved her and would have done anything for her. For a long time she resisted his advances strenuously. Then one winter evening when he had dropped in for a cup of tea and they were alone in the house, the two of them had sat down together on a low seat by the fireside. They were so transfixed by desire that they could scarcely speak. Each pair of lips thirsted desperately for the other and their arms trembled with the need to open wide and embrace. A lace-shaded lamp cast an intimate glow on this scene in the silent room. Equally embarrassed, they exchanged the occasional word but each time their eyes met their hearts leapt violently. What is the use of fine feelings when pitted against the power of instinct? And what chance does modest restraint have against that of natural desire?

Their fingers touched by chance. And that was it. The brutal force of their senses hurled the couple together. They clung to each other and she gave herself to him.